“It’s an fascinating cell idea,” says Jürgen Janek, a professor on the Institute of Bodily Chemistry on the College of Giessen in Germany, who was not concerned within the analysis. There’s been earlier analysis on sodium-air batteries prior to now, Janek says, however utilizing this kind of chemistry in a gas cell as a substitute is new.
“One of many essential points with any such cell idea is the security subject,” Janek says. Sodium steel reacts very strongly with water. (You’ll have seen movies the place blocks of sodium steel get thrown right into a lake, to dramatic impact). Requested about this subject, Chiang says the design of the cell ensures that water produced throughout reactions is repeatedly eliminated, so there’s not sufficient round to gas dangerous reactions. The strong electrolyte, a ceramic materials, additionally helps forestall reactions between water and sodium, Chiang provides.
One other query is what occurs to one of many cell’s merchandise, sodium hydroxide. Generally often known as lye, it is an industrial chemical, utilized in merchandise like liquid drain-cleaning resolution. One of many researchers’ strategies is to dilute the product and launch it into the ambiance or ocean, the place it could react with carbon dioxide, capturing it in a steady kind and stopping it from contributing to world warming. There are teams pursuing discipline trials utilizing this actual chemical for ocean-based carbon removing, although some have been met with controversy. The researchers additionally laid out the potential for a closed system, the place the chemical may very well be collected and offered as a by-product.
There are financial components working in favor of sodium-based techniques, although it could take some work to construct up the mandatory provide chains. At the moment, sodium steel isn’t produced at very excessive volumes. Nonetheless, it may be created from sodium chloride (desk salt), which is extremely low-cost. And it was produced extra abundantly prior to now, because it was used within the course of of constructing leaded gasoline. So there’s a precedent for a bigger provide chain, and it’s potential that scaling up manufacturing of sodium steel would make it low-cost sufficient to make use of in gas cell techniques, Chiang says.
Chiang has cofounded an organization known as Propel Aero to commercialize the analysis. The challenge obtained funding from ARPA-E’s Propel-1K program, which goals to develop new types of high-power power storage for plane, trains, and ships.
The following step is to proceed analysis to enhance the cells’ efficiency and power density, and to begin designing small-scale techniques. One potential early software is drones. “We’d prefer to make one thing fly inside the subsequent 12 months,” Chiang says.
“If individuals don’t discover it loopy, I’ll be reasonably disillusioned,” Chiang says. “As a result of if an thought doesn’t sound loopy at the start, it most likely isn’t as revolutionary as you assume. Fortuitously, most individuals assume I’m loopy on this one.”